As with authority generally, force may be justified, but the burden of proof is with those who would use force, not with those upon whom it is used. Questions should be directed at the police, not their innocent victim. I think that
particularly at a time when tension is high, when police resources are stretched while dealing with a crisis, caution and restraint should be paramount - precisely because the likelihood of this sort of "mistake" becomes much greater.
Before going over some of the details that have been revealed in other stories about this incident (and that were conveniently left out of
this editorial), let's consider one of the obvious consequences of this police action if the victim had actually been involved with the bombings. Being dead, he would no longer be of any use to the investigation. He couldn't answer any questions about his actions, his collaborators, his motives, etc. At the very least, that's shoddy police work.
Now for some of the details (that I think cast the last paragraph into even sharper relief).
Following the failed bombings of 21 July, the apartment building that Menezes lived in was identified from materials found inside the bombers' unexploded backpacks and was immediately put under surveillance. When Menezes - "dressed in baseball cap, blue fleece and baggy trousers" - left his apartment on the morning of 22 July he was followed by plainclothes police. As he approached a nearby subway station the police decided to arrest him. An armed police unit took over and ordered Menezes to stop. He did not. He ran onto the platform, tried to board a train, was caught by the police, knocked down and then shot five times in the head.[details from
Source]
So, imagining that the police really had found someone involved in the bombings, they failed to exercise the self-control necessary to efficiently and successfully fulfill their duties (investigating a crime) by killing the only potential informant then in their custody.
But, going back to reality, Menezes wasn't involved in the bombings. He was an electrician from Brazil - 3 years in the UK - who may-well have wondered why he was being pursued by a gang of men. And if we are to excuse the actions of the police because of the post-bombings atmosphere of tension, we must consider the fear and confusion of a civilian subway-user in the same atmosphere being told to Stop! by a group of armed men. We might speculate that - since he knew he wasn't a terrorist - Menezes thought the police (if he knew they were police) were after someone else and he didn't want to get caught in the crossfire. Or we might consider that Menezes feared that - being the target of police pursuit - he might be killed by them in this atmosphere of high tension before he could prove his innocence. Of course, that's just what happened. We'll never know what Menezes was thinking during the last moments of his life, we can only infer from the reports of eyewitnesses who said, for example: "he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified..."
To return for a moment to the issue of police investigations... This shoot-to-kill policy (refined after consultation with Israeli police) and other lethal force and extraordinary police powers policies enacted or bolstered in the UK, the US and elsewhere following 9/11 are reminiscent of the 1970 implementation of the War Measures Act in Canada during the
FLQ crisis.
In that episode two prominent men (James Cross, British Trade Commissioner, and Pierre Laporte, Québec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour) were kidnapped and held captive by members of the FLQ, who had been involved in a number of bombings and other crimes over the preceding years. Claiming that the country was in a state of "apprehended insurrection", the Canadian government invoked the War Measures Act, allowing the government and police to control all forms of transportation; to censor, suppress or control publications; to take over, control, confiscate or dispose thereof or use any property; and to arrest, detain, exclude or expel individuals without explanation or trial. The military occupied the streets of Montreal. Hundreds of people across the country (but particularly in Québec) were investigated, arrested and held - sometimes incommunicado and for many days. In the end, Pierre Laporte was killed by his captors and James Cross was released following negotiations between the police and his captors. According to a number of the investigating police officers involved, it was regular police work and not the extraordinary rights of the War Measures Act that led to finding the FLQ terrorists. Furthermore, it is quite possible that the conditions of the War Measures Act actually contributed to the murder of Pierre Laporte.
I recount this story because it shows that as tempting as it may be to give police and other authorities extraordinary powers to use force, it is not the force that solves crimes, though it may indeed intimidate the population. In fact, time and time again it is shown that the use of force only exacerbates problems, heightens tensions, draws on prevalent bigotries, and results in "tragic mistakes" like the death of a 27 year old Brazilian-born electrician named Jean Charles de Menezes.
Finally, a reminder that this indefensible killing is only one of the inevitable products of the policies of Force and Fear being implemented and extended by the governments of the UK, the US, Canada and elsewhere. This incident is just a single wretched example of what happens when fear and force are unleashed. For every Jean Charles de Menezes there are literally hundreds of thousands of unnamed and unmentioned people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Columbia, Nigeria, etc. having their heads blown off to safeguard the freedom and prosperity of Kennebunkport and Crawford.
